It ends with the paperwork of the expenses in the “business travel”

Posted On January 16, 2020May 8, 2020

Posted By CharlesBall

Travel for business

A business trip is a trip that is made for work or commercial purposes , unlike other types of trips that, for example, occur in leisure time. Each year the number of workers who spend much of their time traveling for work grows. Meetings, congresses, knowing new trends or the so-called international expansion, are just some of the reasons why these workers move.

Types of business trips

Displacement that is done to visit clients, prepare budgets, negotiate contracts or renew them, etc. Of course, commercials usually do it, although in the case of large accounts they can even be direct ones.

Congressional trip

Attendance at fairs, congresses, specialized conferences and other activities. As a company you can attend as a listener or visitor or have a more active role as a speaker or speaker.

Incentive trip

Prize or gratification offered by the company to its employees, customers or suppliers. Normally, employees who have achieved previously defined objectives, large clients with minimal turnover with the company, etc. usually participate in this type of travel.

Travel for internal reasons

Internal meetings, whether of the entire team, of a department or of an individual level, can also cause displacements. Sometimes they can even be trips for reasons such as inaugurations of new facilities, company dinners, etc.

Portrait of an handsome smiling business man driving his car

Training trip

Do not confuse travel for technical reasons. In this case, the person receiving the training is the mobility worker. Sometimes it can be mixed with congressional tourism, when attending an event or day has the objective of increasing or improving the training of the assistant.

Bleisure travel

The travel bleisure is the mix of leisure and work during business trips . The tendency is to extend the days of travel to be granted a few days of leisure . This practice of bleisure is becoming more frequent in the last five years among 6 out of 10 business travelers .

An international study by Bridgestreed viajeres 640 professionals, shows that the 83% of respondents said leverage your business trips to explore the city in which it is. Even 79% of them take the opportunity to take a few days off and stay at the destination. Even almost half (46%) do so whenever they have a professional trip. In fact, 6 out of 10 corporate travelers are more willing to mix work and leisure during their trips than 5 years ago. And almost everyone agrees that it helps them gain experience and knowledge (97%), and that it helps them in business objectives (79%).

According to another study carried out by Expedia , it is the young people who take advantage of work trips to spend time at leisure : professional travelers between 18 and 30 take an average of 4.2 days of vacation on their business trips, against 2.9 days for those between 31 and 45 years old, and 3.2 days for those between 46 and 65 years old.

What do business travelers do when they have free time during their journeys? The favorite activity that three of each four surveyed say they do is sightseeing and getting to know the city (77.2%), according to BridgeStreet, followed by going to dinner (66.3%), or enjoying some cultural or related activity with art (66%). Some also take the opportunity to go out (34.8%), or do activities abroad (33.9%), such as a bike ride or some excursion. The variety of activities is therefore very wide: whatever your tastes or hobbies, business travelers can find what to do during their bleisure trips .

Finally, it should be noted that, despite all these data, 59% of business travelers admit that their company does not have travel policies related to this area, 27% are not sure, and only 14% say they have some type of company policy in this regard.

How business travel affects you

Business travel is not a risk practice for your health. But it is true that if it is done frequently it can have certain consequences. This is confirmed by a study published in the specialized journal Environment and Planning A. conducted by researchers from the University of Surrey, in the United Kingdom, and from Linnaeus University, in Sweden.

In fact, some of the symptoms, which result in physiological problems, are given by the well-known jet lag . Frequently, this hourly decompensation is to blame for sleep disorders such as insomnia , and according to this study, it could also be closely related to premature aging.

On the other hand, afterworks and meals do not usually promote a healthy diet. So in the long run overweight and increased blood sugar may be other consequences of frequent business trips.

The psychological and emotional effects are less obvious but are also noted. Disorders such as “the disorientation of the traveler”, the result of constantly changing place and time zone, are a reality. On the other hand, it is not a novelty that the trip itself is already a source of stress.

Finally, there are social effects that also affect family and friends of the traveler. The distance, loneliness and the burden of responsibilities that the member of the couple who stays at home has to assume can have negative effects on the relationship.

But, to what extent are business travelers aware of how these professional journeys affect them? Does traveling cause them stress? Does it affect men as well as women? Captio, with the collaboration of The Business Traveler magazine, DOISER and MICE in the Cloud, has produced the I Captio Report on the personal impact of business travel . The document tries to define the extent to which travelers feel that their movements influence their personal lives .

As you can see in the graph, 54% of the more than 200 business travelers analyzed respond that traveling affects them a lot, and about 7% elevates it to a lot. On the contrary, the responses that relativize personal involvement add up to about 40% .